A blog about Thomas Witlam Atkinson and Lucy Atkinson, the 19th century explorers of Siberia and Central Asia

Locating the grave of Rebekah Atkinson

Another little mystery in the Thomas Atkinson saga has been resolved – the whereabouts of the grave of his first wife, Rebekah.

Thomas married Rebekah on 1 April 1819 in Halifax, where he was probably working in a local quarry. Rebekah, born in 1792, was six or seven years older than Thomas – who was 20 – and she was already pregnant with their first child Martha, born in November the same year. Although we don’t know the circumstances which led to the end of the marriage, we know that it probably broke down in the late 1830s or early 1840s, when the couple were living in Manchester.

The clues to their separation are few and far between. We know from the 1841 Census that at that time Thomas, together with his youngest daughter Emma, was living in Chapel Lane, a poor neighbourhood of Chorlton cum Hardy, then a rural village with around 700 inhabitants about four miles south of Manchester, where most people were employed on farms or in market gardening. Also living in the house was Alice Booth, 30, described as a family servant.

Thomas and Rebekah’s other daughter, Martha, had married Manchester solicitor James Wheeler in July the previous year in the local parish church and was also living nearby. The Atkinsons’ only son, John (b.1823), must have left home already, although I cannot find him anywhere in the 1841 Census.

Rebekah (sometimes spelled Rebecca) may have been living alone in nearby Chorlton on Medlock. There is a ‘Mrs Atkinson’ listed in Crawshaw Street and described as a washerwoman, but the details are hard to confirm because, as the census-taker noted in the margin, “house locked up and not back until Wednesday”. Most of the neighbours were cotton weavers. It is hard to believe that Rebekah would have been forced to take in washing, but the fact she was not present may mean this information was incorrect. The fact her son John cannot be found on the Census may mean that he was living elsewhere with his mother.

A decade later, at the time of the 1851 Census, Thomas was already long gone, having arrived in St Petersburg in July 1846. Even before that, it is likely he was living in Hamburg for several years, along with his son John. There is also some evidence that he travelled by sea to India in the early 1840s. In February 1848 he married Lucy Finley in Moscow.

Rebekah was noted in the 1851 Census as a visitor to No 5 Beaufort Street in Chelsea, along with another woman, Mary Ann Grouinett (possibly Groinett), who had come from Cheltenham. The head of household was Mrs Mary Anne Palmer, who lived there with her two daughters and her son. Whatever the arrangements at that time, Rebekah was to stay at the house for the rest of her life.

In 1861 – by which time Thomas, Lucy and Alatau were back from Russia and living in West London – the Census shows she is still in Beaufort Street with Mrs Palmer and her two spinster daughters and Mary Ann Grouinett. All are described as receiving an annuity. By 1871 Mrs Palmer is described as a boarding house keeper and Rebekah as an annuitant. Mary Ann Grouinett is also still there. The two daughters have gone and there are now more boarders.

Rebekah died at Beaufort Street on 7th May 1872, by which time she would have been 80, although described as 77 on the death certificate, which described her as “Widow of Thomas Witlam Atkinson, Architect”. A nurse, Jane Day, of nearby Cheyne Row West, was present at her death.

After searching for several years, Sally Hayles has now found Rebekah’s final resting place. In fact, she was interred in Highgate Cemetery in Hampstead, one of seven huge private cemeteries established by an Act of Parliament in the mid-1800s to relieve the pressure for burial plots in central London, which had run out of space. It was opened in 1839 and soon became a favoured place for London’s middle classes to be buried.

Map showing the location of Rebekah’s grave at Highgate

The plot was purchased by her son-in-law James Wheeler, who paid 15/- for the privilege. There is no headstone or memorial associated with the plot. At the time of Rebekah’s death the Wheelers were living not far away in a very grand house in Cumberland Place, just off Marble Arch in Central London, together with six servants, including a butler and a footman. They are buried together in St Michael and All Angels Church in Cuxton, near Rochester, Kent – not far from Thomas, who is buried in Lower Walmer.

Sally Hayles had also previously located Lucy Atkinson’s grave. She died of bronchitis on 13 November 1893 in a house in Mecklenburg Square, close to Kings Cross in London and is buried in Tower Hamlets Cemetery (also known as Bow Cemetery) in Mile End. This is close to where she was brought up near the East London docks. An inscription on the gravestone – now unreadable – originally read:

Sacred to the memory of

Lucy Sherrard Atkinson

Widow of

Thomas William Atkinson, FRGS, FGS

Born April 16th 1819

Died November 3rd 1893

“We have loved thee with an everlasting love,

therefore to devine kindness were drawn thee.”

Thomas and Lucy’s son, Alatau, paid a total of 10 guineas for the plot, although he was living in Hawaii and did not attend the funeral. Presumably he also chose the quote, which is adapted from a line in the Old Testament Book of Jeremiah, although it does not follow the King James translation. The dates are slightly wrong, and Thomas’ middle name is wrong, which suggests it was carved by someone who was not given clear instructions. Close by in the same cemetery is the grave of Benjamin Coulson Robinson, in whose house Lucy lived for several years and to whom she was related. Benjamin’s wife Hannah was one of the witnesses to Lucy’s will.